Just-a-tad minority

May 3, 2012 - Jim Anderson

Elizabeth Warren, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, has been caught.

Warren, a champion for consumer financial protections, is locked in a tight, closely-watched race against incumbent Republican Scott Brown.

The Brown campaign must have been elated when it was revealed that — between 1986 and 1995 — Warren listed herself as a minority professor in a law school directory.

Warren claims she has American Indian ancestry — which, apparently, she does.

Just not a lot. Like ... 1/32 or thereabouts.

Warren says she never used her “minority” status to advance her career. And administrators at the universities where Warren taught have supported her claim.

Still, 1/32 is 1/32.

At the New York Post, conservative wisecracker Michelle Malkin has dubbed Warren “Pinocchio-hontas.”

In an attempt today to explain her minority listing, Warren said she was simply trying to meet people of similar background.

“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am,” she said. “Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off.”

Nice try.

In fact, soon as I'm finished here, I'm off to to see if being three or four percent Scottish qualifies me for a discount on a kilt.

Warren needs to put this to rest in another way.

She can speak proudly of all aspects of her heritage while conceding that, in hindsight, just-a-tad does not necessarily a minority make.

Bill John Baker, a man of mixed ethnicity, serves as Cherokee Nation chief. He is 1/32 Cherokee by blood. Warren need not cite that — Baker's election had controversies of its own — but someone in her court should be making it widely known.